Police nod up for grabs in mayoral debate

The four candidiates for San Diego mayor debate Tuesday. From left: Michael Aguirre, David Alvarez, Kevin Faulconer and Nathan Fletcher.

Howard Lipin

The four candidiates for San Diego mayor debate Tuesday. From left: Michael Aguirre, David Alvarez, Kevin Faulconer and Nathan Fletcher.

The four candidiates for San Diego mayor debate Tuesday. From left: Michael Aguirre, David Alvarez, Kevin Faulconer and Nathan Fletcher. (Howard Lipin)

The recruiting and retention issues within the San Diego Police Department took center stage Tuesday as the four top mayoral contenders openly courted the endorsement of the city’s police officers.

City Council members David Alvarez and Kevin Faulconer as well as Qualcomm executive Nathan Fletcher each made their pitch to rebuild the department through increasing the take-home pay of officers and promising them public safety will be a top priority in their administrations. Former City Attorney Michael Aguirre, who is loathed by city unions for his past attempts to curb or eliminate pensions, took a tough-love approach and said he wouldn’t promise raises because enough of the city’s budget is already consumed by pension and public-safety costs.

The turnover in the Police Department has quickly become one of the top issues facing the city as roughly half of the 1,800-plus sworn officers are eligible to retire within the next four years. The city has also been struggling to retain young officers because they leave for better pay at other agencies.

With that as the backdrop, the contenders are aggressively pursuing the backing of the San Diego Police Officers Association, the last big-name endorsement available in the race that, if secured, would allow a candidate to trumpet himself as law enforcement’s choice.

Faulconer and Fletcher have each released detailed plans to address the police issues while Aguirre and Alvarez have expressed support for fixing the problem.

Faulconer’s plan calls for boosting staffing, raising pay for experienced cops and meeting equipment and modernization needs. The GOP-endorsed candidate also wants to speed recruitment and hire grant writers to find more money for the department.

“Specifically my plan talks about cutting the red tape for recruitment,” Faulconer said. “It also talks about making sure we have competitive salaries and making sure that our officers have the equipment that they need. I led the effort on recruitment and retention ... before we even had a mayor’s race. We stood up and we said we need to make sure that our officers have more money in their pockets.”

Faulconer and Alvarez each voted in favor of a new police contract earlier this year that gives officers a guaranteed 7 percent raise over five years. They later voted for a $2 million retention program with most of the money going to officers’ uniform costs.

Fletcher, a Democrat and former assemblyman, said his plan is to add 160 officers to the department by 2016, reduce out-of-pocket health care expenses, upgrade equipment and offer overtime pay for officers assisting in recruitment.

“Look, it’s clear that what we’re doing is not working,” Fletcher said. “It’s clear that what we’ve done over the last seven years hasn’t worked either because over 1,000 officers have left. Now there have been some Band-Aid efforts recently but that hasn’t stopped the bleeding because we’re still losing over 10 officers a month, more than we’re bringing in and more than we’re replacing.”

Neither Faulconer nor Fletcher has said how they’ll fund their plans other than to make it a budget priority.

Alvarez, a Democrat, has yet to offer a specific plan, but he has repeatedly said he hopes to reopen the recently-inked police contract after three years and give officers a larger increase.

“I think it’s really simple: If we pay, you stay,” Alvarez said. “That’s what going to need to happen in the city. It’s not a magic plan that anybody puts together. We pay you the money that makes us competitive ... you’re going to want to stay.”

Aguirre began the debate by citing the numerous benefits that officers currently receive and noted that it would be hard to argue that they deserved more when the city can’t afford to properly finance road repairs. He also twice said he refused to pander to police officers during the debate.

“Our POA has done a fabulous job of defining the problem as a retention problem,” Aguirre said. “I want to redefine it as ‘How do we provide security and safety to our neighborhoods and to the people of San Diego working with our Police Department and our new chief?’”

The candidates were also asked if they support so-called “me too” clauses in labor contracts. Such clauses require that if a provision is included in one city union’s contract, the others get it too. Some city leaders expressed frustration this year when the employee unions banded together during negotiations because it tied their hands in terms of giving police officers a significantly larger pay increase.

Faulconer was the only candidate to explicitly say he opposed “me too” clauses although Fletcher’s campaign said after the debate that he opposes them too. Alvarez didn’t directly answer the question and Aguirre said he wouldn’t discuss terms and conditions of labor contracts.

The Police Officers Association sponsored the hourlong debate along with several other law-enforcement agencies and U-T San Diego,

Brian Marvel, the association’s president, said the group’s board will meet Thursday to discuss the candidates and he expects a decision on its endorsement before Oct. 21 when mail ballots are sent to voters.

“We were really happy to have them all come out,” Marvel said of the candidates. “I thought they did exceptionally well in answering all the questions. We’re happy that they were willing to make statements here that we thought were positive for our department and moving it forward out of the current situation about recruiting and retention.”

The choice appears to be between Faulconer and Fletcher, as both have received support from the Police Officers Association in the past. The group backed Fletcher in last year’s mayoral contest and has twice backed Faulconer in his council races. POA opposed Alvarez’s 2010 council bid.